A Pillow of Twisted Grass
by Milareppa
Summary: As two children struggle with the hardships life throws their way, they have no way of knowing how the physical distance separating them hides their shared destiny.
1. Petals of the Tea Plum Tree

**Setting:** Pre-Manga

**Author's Note:  
**1) Livejournal's Secret MiroSanta Assignment. I was assigned to write a story for yumi_michiyo.  
2) In the anime, Inuyasha and Kagome get a red thread. I thought Miroku and Sango deserved one too.

* * *

_**Chapter 1: Petals of the Tea-Plum Tree**_

It was a strange thing to break the silence of a languid afternoon. No wind in the late autumn air to disturb the breeze, no birdsong to give life to the landscape outside the window. Even the soft scratch of his needle against cloth had ceased as he became more aware of the silence encircling him than he was of the task spread out in his lap.

It was as if the world was holding its breath. Waiting. Waiting for the softest creak of floorboards; the pad of a bare foot against wood.

Blinking out of his reverie, he glanced down at his small hands, at the rough seam he had so recently completed. How long had he been sat there staring at nothing, waiting for the sound of the old priest's approach? Why was it now, after having looked forward to it for so long, all he felt was the icy touch of fear trailing slowly down his spine and curling into a knot in his belly like a sunbathing snake?

'Miroku, he's here.'

In the depths of his gut, the snake reared up, hissing. His stomach churned. Mushin's voice sounded like the deep chime of a temple bell. It only served to make the boy realise that he couldn't remember the last time he had heard the bell today, as if the air was laden with the absence of its sound. An absence filled only by the negativity that laced the old man's voice. Miroku found himself unable to raise his head, unable to even look at his master or even speak. _'I am a coward,'_ he realised, a thrill of very personal horror at this new awareness lacing its way through his spine to join the nameless terror that had been building up inside him all day. It only made him duck his head even further in shame.

'Miroku?'

'Coming,' he whispered, scrambling to his feet to follow the old monk who was already retreating down the corridor. For such an oversized and elderly fellow, Mushin could certainly walk fast when he wanted to - Miroku had to hurry to keep up, his small strides no match at all for his master's heavy gait. The harsh rub of hemp against his skin made him look down. He hadn't consciously picked up it, but he was relieved to see that he hadn't forgotten to bring the object he had been working hard to complete all day.

It was only a pillow, a poorly crafted one at that. He had spent all the previous day twisting the grasses that he would stuff it with, and all of this day sewing it into the pillow itself. A pillow of twisted grass… it was said that to carry one on a journey was to ward off misfortune, and with each step closer to the outside of the building, Miroku grew more and more certain that it was absolutely necessary for him to do everything in his power to ward of the misfortune he could feel. The air was thick with the sense of it. Overhead, black clouds were gathering in honour of it. His lungs were clogged by the very weight of it.

Clutching the pillow tightly to him, he burst through the already opened doorway, squinting against the one last shaft of sunlight that seemed to be defying the growing storm to highlight the figure that waited patiently in the grass below them. It was just a monk, not an unusual sight for a temple, even one as isolated and poor as this temple was. He wasn't even of any noteworthy rank – just a low-ranking itinerant monk, a _houshi_. Not hidden enough by the hat he wore to disguise the youth, the newcomer wore a face much too serious to be justifiable for either a young man or even a monk.

'Father!' Miroku hurried forwards, only to be hauled back by a hand on his shoulder before he had managed even two paces. It wasn't the strength of the grip on his shoulder that almost drove him to his knees, however. A mere two paces – that was all that was required for him to sense the difference in the air, the _movement_. Miroku froze, his eyes wide. On such a still day, there was no place for the wind to blow – but he could feel it, gathered in an eddy that was focused solely on his father. He could see it in the restless stirring of the heavy black kimono and the ripples that swept across the purple kesa that covered it. That, more than Mushin's tight grip, gave him pause. His father could summon the wind, this he knew without doubt. But this wind was different, ominous, and it took the boy only a moment to work out why.

His father… his father was _creaking_.

It wasn't a sound Miroku could fully identify with, for he had never heard anything quite like it. Certainly, it wasn't the sound of bare feet on the floorboards. It was perhaps a little similar to the sound of an old building in a storm, the sound of wood bowing in the wind. It was a sound that forced one to respect the strength of the wind and to never, ever ignore it.

'Father?'

'Stay here, Miroku,' Mushin's ample frame moved in front of the boy, blocking his view of his father as he walked forwards. Unable to resist, Miroku sidled a little to side to regain that vision, and was met by the old man's stern glare from over one shoulder. He froze. It was rare for Mushin to glare at anything – except perhaps the sake jugs in the store house upon realising they were empty - but somehow, Miroku always managed to bring that side out of him. He shifted his grip on the pillow he had made for his father to carry with him, the one he had been so desperate to complete in time for his father's visit and next journey. Now, he sensed, was not the time to antagonise the old monk.

Strain his hearing though he tried, Miroku couldn't hear anything of the conversation. In fact, there barely seemed to be a conversation taking place. The two monks seemed to know everything significant that needed to be said, and had very little else to communicate. This wasn't like his father's other visits at all. It looked like his father had stopped by just long enough to leave again. Miroku glanced down at the pillow in his hands. Perhaps it was just long enough to pass along his gift?

It was the sense he was being watched that made him lift his head again. That gleam among the shadows of the hat – it was his father that was watching him, at least from his peripheral vision. 'Miroku, you better come closer, boy,' Mushin raised his voice just loud enough for Miroku to hear the command. He leapt forward without hesitation, raising his hands to offer the pillow when he was stilled into motionless once more.

'Naraku.'

'Huh?' Miroku stared up at his father in confusion. It couldn't be a mispronunciation of the name of the Sixth Realm of Hell – his father's Buddhist education was too good to make such a ridiculous mistake – but he knew of no other association that would explain what his father had just said.

From the corners of his eyes, his father was still analysing him. 'This name, Miroku,' he explained. 'Naraku – the youkai that killed your grandfather. The youkai that has killed your father. This youkai that will also be your death if you do not avenge us all. This is a name you must never forget. Do you understand?'

Miroku stared at him speechlessly before managing a quick nod that revealed he understood nothing at all. A youkai that had killed his father? But his father was standing right there in front him, speaking strange words, standing straight-backed and smartly dressed. He possessed no injuries. He didn't look close to death at all.

His father's piercing gaze vanished from his sight, focused on Mushin. 'He'll understand,' the old monk promised with an emphatic determination that made Miroku's insides wobble sickeningly.

The lower-ranked monk started to turn away, but paused. Miroku was at exactly the right height to see the way his left hand balled suddenly into a fist. 'Miroku.'

Tearing his gaze away from that clenched fist, he raised his eyes to search his father's face for clues about what was happening – but found only a face so lost in darkness and shadow that his heart leapt to think that he had to rely on his memory of what his father looked like even though he was standing right in front of him. As if his father really was dead, after all.

'I'm… sorry.'

'Father?'

'As a son, I had a father to avenge. As a father, I had a son to save. I have done neither, and so it depends on you now… please forgive me.'

'Yes…' Miroku trailed off. His father was already walking away.

He wasn't certain what it was that made him move forwards, to race after his father. Perhaps it was the brevity of the visit, or perhaps it was the strange words. Perhaps it was simply the sense that if he let his father walk away now he knew with absolute certainty that he would never see him again.

It was the howling gusts, the crashing end to a windless day, where the first true seed of understanding was planted in his mind and began to sprout, reinforced by the bruising grip of the old monk that held him back from approaching any further, and which, as the winds finally died and the still of the day returned as if nothing at all had happened, left behind nothing more than a giant crater that had changed his life forever and flung his path into a darkness he was either too young, or too much of a coward, to fully understand.

Behind him, forgotten, a pillow of twisted grass withered in the dirt – completed far too late, after all.

* * *

It was a strange thing to break the silence of a languid afternoon. No wind in the late autumn air to disturb the breeze, no birdsong to give life to the landscape outside the window. Even the soft scratch of her needle against cloth had ceased as she became more aware of the silence encircling her than she was of the task spread out in her lap.

It was as if the world was holding its breath. Waiting. Waiting for the softest creak of floorboards; the pad of a bare foot against wood.

She wearily passed a hand across her eyes, her gaze shifting from the window to the crumpled form lying next to her. Her young brother hadn't moved for hours, but the expression on his face was miserable. In sleep he seemed as affected by the atmosphere as she was while awake. _'I'm sorry, Kohaku,'_ she thought. _'I can't protect you from this.'_

She couldn't protect him from much of anything, it seemed.

'Sango.'

Her head lifted, startled not to have heard any approach, but the beating of her heart wasn't the result of surprise. She knew from the tone of his voice why he was there. She didn't need to see his face to know the truth. 'Thank you, Houshi-sama,' she whispered, her voice almost unrecognisable to her own ears. She took a deep breath, her hand resting on Kohaku's shoulder. She wanted a moment to compose herself before waking the boy. She didn't want him to hear that voice. She wanted him to think of her as strong. She needed to be strong.

Even if she wasn't strong at all.

He was staring at her face with frightened eyes, awakened only by that simple touch, and she realised he hadn't been sleeping as soundly as she had first thought. 'Come on,' she whispered, helping him to his feet. 'It'll be okay.'

He nodded, slipping his hand into hers and clinging to it tightly. She allowed it only because he was so young, because this was his first true experience of something that he would have to get used to. In their lifetime, with their lifestyle, this was something that would be a reality for both of them when they were adults. As they followed the black-robed monk down the corridor, she glanced at the boy from the corner of his eye. His head was down. She couldn't see his expression at all.

But his shoulders were shaking already.

He was so young. Would he even remember this day in the long run? Was he old enough for that? Would he rely on her for the memories that he would never have? She couldn't even think about this day, how could she possibly recall it in the future, except as anything other than a yawning abyss that was rapidly swallowing them whole? Their clasped hands tightened, and suddenly it wasn't him clinging to her hand. She was the one clinging to him.

'_I'm sorry, Kohaku,'_ her thoughts wailed. She was the older sister. Surely she could be – should be – stronger than this?

They were there before she knew it, the journey having been so bitterly short. Kohaku froze at the threshold. Or perhaps she did and he copied her action. The monk turned away, abandoning them to a road he couldn't lead them down. She squeezed Kohaku's hand gently, hoping it was a reassuring gesture, but she couldn't look at him. She didn't want to him to see her face. She didn't want to see his face. She didn't want either one of them start crying. Not now. Not yet.

She felt as though she was flying apart at the seams as she stepped through the door into the room beyond. It was odd. Her attention should have immediately been drawn to the centre of the room – to the futon and the figure lying so still within it. Perhaps her attention should have first been drawn to the figure bowed over the futon, her father, still as stone – almost as still as the figure he was leaning over.

Instead it was drawn to the insignia that defined their clan, that defined their village and their way of life. The one that told the world who and what they were, what they could be relied on to do. That they could be relied upon at all. As she knelt down beside the futon, tugging Kohaku down with her, it was her bitter reflection that it wasn't fair that this was how a woman of this nature should be entering the next world. Didn't they die in battle? Wasn't that what her father kept saying? That all things in life were like the cherry blossom – flourishing so briefly and brightly, before being cut down by the winds of fate? Wasn't this the way of things, especially for their clan?

He had said nothing of the crippling, useless wastage of sickness and disease. Of watching someone lingering away into nothing, unable to move, where every shift of the chest was a battle for life all by itself. What kind of death was this?

'Mother?' she whispered. She spoke because she knew if she didn't, right now, she never would. She didn't want the first sound out of her mouth to be a sob. She didn't want start crying. Not now. Not yet.

There was so little response from her still form. Even her chest was barely moving. Fearfully, not certain what to expect, Sango touched her mother's hand with her fingers. The hand was cool, far too cool for a healthy person, but it wasn't the unyielding chill and rigidity of death either. The surge of relief she felt at this seemed utterly ridiculous to her, and inappropriate. Yet she couldn't stop this feeling that rushed through her.

'Mother?' she tried again, and that relief vanished in waft of realisation that her mother was far too weak to respond. Perhaps she didn't even know Sango was present at all. Sango bit her lip at that thought. 'Mother, I know you have to go away,' she whispered. 'So I made you this. I hope you don't mind.' She wrapped her mother's cold fingers around the object she'd been working on. 'The monk told me that when people go on long journeys, they sometimes take a pillow stuffed with twisted grass so the journey will be free from misfortune. I-I can't go with you, so please… please take this with you and think of me. Kohaku… Kohaku collected the grass. So please, think of him as well.'

She felt it, so faintly, a twitch of the fingers that lay underneath her own, a feeble attempt to grasp the pillow more tightly. It was an answer, she knew. The only one her mother was capable of giving, one that had taken the very last of her strength to give. Kohaku's sob at her side forced her to give up her grip on her mother to embrace him, but holding him felt strange, distant, as if they were touching through a sea of grass.

Her mother was dead. Why was she so calm?

The strangest wail broke through her thoughts. It was the keening of a tormented ghost, the grief known only to the hungry dead. Her grip on Kohaku tightened. 'Please don't cry,' she whispered. 'Mother had a kind heart; she's going on a good journey.'

The words were barely out of her mouth before she realised her mistake, before she realised that the sobbing youngster in her arms wasn't the source of the terribly cry. Nor was the source as bad as that of a restless ghost.

It was much, much worse.

She had found some comfort in the thought that, while her mother had gone, the suffering had ended. That she would no longer be a witness to the lingering collapse of a once powerful, vital being. It was only now, as she stared open-mouthed at the sight of her father – her _father_ – crumbling before her very eyes that she began to realise just how wrong she'd been.

She had been so worried about her brother. She had been so worried about the consequences of a son's grief that it hadn't occurred to her to worry about the consequences of a husband's grief as well.


	2. Dreams of Falling Snow Flakes

_**Chapter 2: Dreams of Falling Snowflakes**_

'_Miroku, polish the statue of Buddha.'_

Miroku shook his head as he cleaned the temple's small statue. He had heard stories of huge Buddhas that were the size of mountains. He had heard of ones that were cast in solid gold. He doubted he would ever get to see such a sight. This temple was poor and it was tiny. He had even heard that some temples had the wealth to send their monks to seek enlightenment over on the mainland. In this place, there was no such extravagance. Just toil and prayer and learning.

And polishing the statue of Buddha.

It seemed to be the only thing that Mushin said to him these days. He did his chores – and was told to polish the statue of Buddha. He did his lessons – and was told to polish the statue of Buddha. He prayed – and was told to polish the statue of Buddha. He meditated – and was told to polish the statue of Buddha.

He asked how long it would take for the new hole in his right hand to grow big enough to suck him into its void and destroy him - and was told to polish the statue of Buddha.

It was infuriating.

Worse, it left his mind free to think and kept his bound right hand in full view of his eyes. He couldn't ignore the situation. He couldn't escape it. He couldn't stop thinking about it.

Was this the old man's intent? To drive him to insanity?

It was strange, but growing up in a monastery should have made him more sensitive to mortality, to the transience of all living things. Yet it hadn't. His nightmares had started shortly before his father's death, a nameless feeling of terror, the sensation of unfocused destiny – one with fangs – breathing down his neck. Then it had been his father's death in every single, horrible detail, replaying in his mind over, and over, and over again. Now the dreams were changing. It wasn't his father being sucked into a howling void of nothingness – it was himself.

No, the situation wasn't infuriating.

It was terrifying.

Stowing the cleaning equipment away, he checked the bindings on his right hand. He didn't like looking at his hand too much, but he liked losing the bindings even less… and almost any task seemed to cause them to slip. They were good enough, he supposed, although it bothered him that when he looked closely enough, he could see the material against his palm stirring gently. Like his father's robes on that day…

With more vehemence than strictly necessary, he grabbed his writing tools and was about to flee outside to hide in his favourite spot, when he was stopped by Mushin's voice.

'Miroku,' the old man teetered slightly, and Miroku sighed at the sight of the sake jug in the old man's right hand. From the sloshing, it sounded almost full, which meant it wasn't the one he'd been carrying a few hours earlier. The old man was going to Join Miroku in a swift grave, it seemed. Even at his young age, Miroku knew the amount Mushin drank wasn't healthy. Then again, along with the giant, gold Buddhas and the travels to exotic lands, he'd also heard stories about drunk and womanising monks - his father and grandfather amongst them, if Mushin was to be believed.

And that wasn't necessarily an easily answered question. Mushin was, after all, something of a practical joker. Miroku secretly wondered if the old man had some tanuki blood in him – there was something not quite _moral_ about what should have been the strongest moral compass in his young life.

'I have a task for you,' the old monk informed him gravely.

Miroku turned fully to face him. 'I polished the statue of Buddha. Twice. So it can't be that.'

'Mind your tongue, boy,' the old monk shot back. 'That rest house down the foot of the mountain. You know it?' His eyes narrowed at the boy's glare. 'Good. Take some food and firewood to it. There's a woman and infant staying there. Better you than me, boy. At least for now.'

Miroku blinked. 'Why stay in a place like that at this time of day? She could be off the mountain by the time night comes.'

'You'll see when you do as I say,' Mushin took a swig from the jug and disappeared back into the room he had stepped out of.

Miroku only had to open the door to the outside world to get the old man's point. The sky was a thick, heavily-laden grey, the landscape vanished under a thick carpet of white. It wasn't snowing right now, but it soon would be. Where had it all come from? Had he really been so busy polishing that he hadn't even noticed it snowing?

The little hut wasn't too far away, but it wasn't going to be an easy trek with all of this snow – it was only a white wonderland for as long as he could remain safely ensconced in the temple. Travelling through it aroused an entirely different mood. Miroku sighed as he shouldered the food and firewood, resolutely keeping his eyes on the ground. It was to watch his step, he told himself, but deep his heart, the truth bit back with guilt-laden fangs. He couldn't look up. He couldn't study the landscape too closely. If he did, he'd be distracted by the circular hollow so close to the temple. He'd pause to analyse how well the snow covered it up, as if nothing had happened there – or whether the magnitude of the event was such that even the snow couldn't disguise the size of the hole left behind.

He was a coward.

He couldn't even look at his father's gravesite. It made him think about his own death. How he would probably die the same way – and perhaps only in a very few short years time.

He was a coward because he couldn't face his fears.

He wasn't certain if it was the depth of the snow, the icy chill in the air or the morbid nature of his thoughts that was stealing his breath away. If the guest had been a man, it wouldn't have been too much of a problem – he'd have stayed in the drafty temple, and probably been asked to help with the chores during his stay. It simply wasn't possible for a woman to stay at the temple, however. Miroku understood that to be a typical rule, but in this temple's case, at least she'd be protected from Mushin's lecherous ways.

'_Better you than me, boy. At least for now.'_

'Jerk,' Miroku muttered under his breath as he approached the hut. He knew as well as anyone that saying about frogs siring frogs. His grandfather had been a lecher. His father had been one. He had no idea who his mother had been. It probably didn't matter. His father hadn't been too choosy in the types of women he kept company with, so his mother probably couldn't have been anyone of note. And if his grandfather had had more discerning tastes when it came to women, Miroku wouldn't have been confronting his death with every step he took at an age when he shouldn't have been worrying at all about it.

He couldn't blame them, however. Why would any decent woman want to get deeply involved with a cursed man that was living under a death sentence? The very thought seemed stupid to Miroku. Better to be the monk he was training to be and get involved with no-one. Mushin, however, had already made up his mind what Miroku's path in life would be. The boy snorted. That was if he lived long enough to grow up in the first place, of course.

It was snowing by the time he made it to the hut, and he stumbled rather than walked through the door. He was met with a sharp and very feminine exclamation, but before he could look up and reassure the woman that he wasn't some random bandit come to attack her, he felt the heat of her body near his, helping take the weight of the firewood and food off his shoulders.

'Are you alright? You must be freezing! Please, sit by the fire and warm yourself.'

The hut was tiny and bare. There was clean straw and blankets for a bed, and Miroku could see the hut's last firewood being used in the fire that was currently lit. A bundle near the fire told him that must have been her sleeping infant – more of a toddler, he suspected, given the size of the lump.

'I'm so sorry to have been a burden to the temple,' she apologised to him as he stacked the firewood, arranging the food he'd brought and setting some liquid to boil for a hot drink. He hadn't been planning on staying, but he was beginning to notice how cold he was and the thought of a warm drink before he headed back into that cold weather was growing more appealing by the moment. 'I simply couldn't risk taking my daughter over the mountain in this weather at such a young age.'

It took Miroku a moment to realise he was staring at her. She was a young mother, with delicate, pale features surrounded by hair that had was carefully arranged, despite her meagre lodgings and difficult travel situation. She wasn't from a noble family, but she wasn't from a poor one either. He could tell that at a glance.

She was definitely pretty and, if initial appearances were anything to go, quite kind as well.

'Are you alright?' She looked so concerned for a moment, that he couldn't help wondering what was wrong – before he remembered he was still staring and quickly shook his head.

'It's fine,' he said quickly, looking away. Feeling the wind stirring around the hut made him think of the weather outside. 'It's a bad time to be travelling through the mountain. We don't normally have travellers at this time.'

'Yes,' she looked down. 'My husband was killed in battle in the summer, but word only arrived a few weeks ago. Had my husband been able to return, the winter would not have been so harsh. As it is, it's best for my daughter if I spend the winter at my parents' home.' She sighed and looked towards the window. 'I think knew,' she admitted. 'But I waited anyway.'

He looked down. He knew how that felt – to know the truth before it was a reality, and to sit on that knowledge, doing nothing until it was too late. It was fear, hiding from the truth until it was so blatant it couldn't be hidden any further. Again the words rang in his head – he was a coward, constantly hiding away from reality, from truth, from his own fears. He was going to make a terrible monk if this kept up.

'Here,' she said softly. He looked up at the offering of roughly made tea. It wasn't much, but in this weather, at this temple, it was enough.

It was as he began to reach for the tea that he noticed it. He had been so cold, too eager to get to the fire, too absorbed in staring at the young woman's face to remember. After the hike, falling into the hut and rearranging the firewood, the binding on his right hand had worked loose again, and he realised with a gnawing sense of dread that the wind stirring through the hut wasn't coming from outside as he had first assumed. 'Oh!' she said in surprise, seeing him stare at his bound hand. 'Were you injured? Let me see!'

'No…' he began as she reached for his hand. It was too late.

It was funny in a thoroughly horrific way how everything recently had been too late.

She only touched the cloth for a moment before he jerked his hand away – whether it was her touch, or his sudden movement, he had no idea - time seemed to move so slowly as it tumbled away to reveal the hole that nestled so innocently in the palm of his hand. As the wind kicked up into full force, whipping around them and flinging her hair loose from its pins, the fire surged up in a wild dance. It was with horror that he noticed the woman was dragged forward by the force of the wind that came out of the tiny hole in his hand – slowly, but he had the power to move a grown adult with this wind already.

He did the only thing his stunned mind could think of – he turned his hand away from the woman, desperately seeking to save her life from a death he didn't want to see any human experience ever again.

And that's when he saw what his hand was pointing towards. The small figure that was lifted fully into the air, the shocked infantile cry as the toddler was so rudely awakened, the wide terrified eyes of as the shape of a small girl flew through the air towards his hand.

He could do nothing to stop it. He couldn't even move. He had thought his nightmares were of the worst possible scenario – visions of his father being sucked in; visions of himself being sucked in.

He hadn't even dreamed of a scenario like this.

But this, _this_ was the unimagined nightmare made real. _This_ was the curse.

It was strange. The woman didn't even cry out. It was the one thing about the situation that stood out so clearly in his mind – the woman didn't panic. She didn't scream. She simply rose in one graceful, fluid motion, and set her body in front of the flying child. The toddler fell to the nearby floor with a thud and a loud yowl, but she was caught in the full force of the gale he had initially tried to protect her from.

It was enough to shock him out of his stupor. It was enough to force him to act. He threw himself backwards, slammed his fist into the wooden floor and felt himself crash into the side of the hut from the force of his own throw. Mushin had warned him he should secure the bindings with sacred mala beads, but they had always gotten in the way of his writing and chores. He hadn't thought it necessary.

He knew now that was the worst mistake he had ever made.

* * *

Sango had only just finished fortifying the windows when it began to snow. The sky had been looking grey and pregnant all morning, it had only been a matter of time before the first flakes began falling, but it surprised her how quickly it became a raging blizzard.

'Kohaku,' she called upon turning and finding him no longer at her side. She hadn't seen him sneak away, but it wasn't unusual. The boy was quiet in everything he did – gentle, clumsy and so very placid.

It worried her. He didn't seem to be developing the mentality required of a youkai exterminator. She herself was only just beginning to learn the serious lessons in preparation for her own career in the field, but she knew enough to know that a timid attitude was no asset.

He was so like Mother…

Sango was terrified he'd end up like her. He seemed so weak.

She found him dragging blankets onto futons. It was almost comical – he was still too small to manage such a task by himself, but he was old enough to understand how cold it was getting and what to do about it. 'Here,' she said softly, 'Let me help you.'

'I can do it!' The boy stubbornly grabbed the corner she had started to reach for. His rough movement ruined his handiwork, but she stood back and watched him struggle anyway. His attitude was ridiculous, but it afforded her some levity.

Levity had been in very short supply recently.

Sango wasn't certain how long she spent watching Kohaku puffing over the futons. She had to concede that his will was something worth nurturing. He definitely had a stubborn streak, and it appeared that he didn't easily give up, even on a task he found difficult. It may have merely been arranging the futons for bedtime, but for such a small child, his tired expression was well deserved.

As a youkai exterminator, he'd need that determination.

The crash of the front door being forcibly slid open brought her swiftly out of her reverie. Rising to her feet, she hurried through the house to find three men entering the main room. Her eyes widened in horror at the sight of them.

But a small part of her was horrified by her complete lack of surprise at the sight.

Two youkai exterminators, and close friends of her father, were supporting him. He looked like he had been beaten to within an inch of his life by a powerful youkai. He was slumped, bloodied and soaked to the skin.

'Please, bring him this way,' Sango led them to the bedroom, watching helplessly as they settled her father onto his futon. They didn't need to ask which was his.

Kohaku pressed up against her for support as he watched. 'Is Father sick again?' he asked with sad eyes.

'Yes, he is,' she replied absently. It was becoming a routine response. She wondered if it would ever become routine enough for Kohaku to stop asking that question.

The two men weren't looking her in the eye as they approached and she stared at their feet. 'We were training and he slipped into that ditch at the end of the run. It's icy out there – watch your footing if you have to go out.' The two men passed on, and she let them go with a nod of agreement.

Nobody looked into anybody's eyes. They didn't even look at each other's faces.

It was such a painfully pointless lie.

'Sister..?'

'It's okay, Kohaku,' she reassured him. 'Time to go to bed and I'll help Father take a bath. Okay?'

He nodded. By the time she'd returned with water and towels and fresh clothing, Kohaku was tucked up in his futon and, if not asleep, then at least he was quiet.

She sighed and set to work on cleaning up her father. He was barely conscious and painfully pliant – as if he no longer had a will of his own, simply responding to her commands or rearranging his limbs as she wished.

There wasn't much blood. Just a few gashes from where he'd caught himself on bushes. He'd stumbled through the river at one point, she guessed – it was fast flowing and didn't freeze well, even in harsher winters.

It occurred to her, as she worked, that this man was an utter stranger. He was the leader of the village, the leader of the youkai exterminators. He was a formidable warrior, an excellent leader and well-loved individual.

She wondered how many excuses his men had offered for his behaviour. She wondered if his reputation was good enough to survive this.

Before her mother had died, she had focused all of her attention on keeping her mother as comfortable as possible, and all her worries had focused on getting Kohaku through this. Now that her mother was gone, however, it was becoming all too clear that her concerns had been misguided. Kohaku had bounced back quite well, considering the circumstances. He was too young to fully understand death – old enough to miss the absence of his mother and pine for her, but not old enough to fully comprehend the enormity of the experience. To some extent, that shielded him. As long as he could turn to Sango as a mother as well as a sister, it seemed to help him through the rough times.

Her father, however…

It was easy being a mother to a younger brother, but what could a young daughter do for a grieving father? She cooked the meals, she kept the house clean, she looked after Kohaku and saw to his education, and she trained as hard as she could. She didn't know what else she could shoulder so that her father wouldn't have to worry.

She didn't know what to do.

Looking into his face as she wiped his neck and cheeks free of the stench of sake, the sense of unfamiliarity only grew. He was a strong man – he could put unreasonable lords in their place, or at least prevent them from abusing their power. He could command an entire army of men. He could slay the strongest youkai.

How could he have broken so easily?

Sango had taken it for granted that the marriage of her parents had been arranged by the families in the proper way. Why would she have bothered to assume differently? It was becoming very clear to her that there had been more than a political arrangement to this particular marriage and it bothered her.

She knew the stories, the warnings from older women. Children her age rarely paid attention because they were too young to care. Older girls were too giddy with romantic notions to appreciate the validity of what they were advised. Sango was beginning to pay attention. She was beginning to care. Sensible arrangements, they were best for everyone, and the most stable solution. Love tended to complicate things. There were plenty of stories where it worked out, of course, but for the most part, it was an inconvenience mature people did best to avoid, or at least minimise.

If it could so easily reduce a man of her father's calibre to rubble, then she was willing to pay attention. There were other stories that girls paid attention to – not just the romances that worked out, but the ones that didn't; or at least, the ones where honour overcame romantic hurdles. There were too many stories of lovers stepping together into the next world because they couldn't be together in this one, and the fear was beginning to gnaw at her, growing slowly, day by day.

Would her father do something silly? Would he do something drastic? Could a broken man be made whole again? Could an empty soul be refilled?

She barely remembered settling him in bed, or cleaning away the water and dirty clothes. It was only as she was attempting to light the incense in front of the family shrine that she realised how badly her hands were shaking, how tight her throat was. How hard it was to breathe.

The Buddha was such a tiny, simple figure. They had a good home, a good standing in the village, but there was nothing ostentatious about their shrine – it was good quality, well-made, durable. Perfect for its purpose, organised and lovingly maintained. He was gleaming tonight, however. Shining with polished perfection – or perhaps that was simply the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes that made it seem so.

She hadn't cried since her mother died. Not then. Not now. It was still a mantra. She needed to stay strong. She had to keep the family together. She couldn't afford to break down for even a moment. If she did, everything would spiral out of control and the home her mother had worked so hard to build would be utterly lost.

She hadn't cried. She'd held it together. But the family _was_ breaking apart. It _was_ spiralling out of control. And everything _was_ lost.

'Sister?'

When on earth had Kohaku followed her out of bed? And how long had he been crouched there staring at her? She turned away, knowing that it was already too late to hide the tears from him.

'Go to bed, Kohaku,' she told him. 'It's fine.'

It was the tone of voice she'd promised to never let him hear – the one that revealed her broken heart. Kohaku had always been an obedient child, first for his mother and now for her, as if avoiding rebellion had been his way of helping out. As he crawled into her lap, it occurred to her that it was a hell of a time for him to start being defiant.

'It's okay if you need a hug,' he whispered. 'I won't tell.'

Whether it was the words or the hug, or merely the sense of being given permission, she didn't know and didn't care to analyse. On some level, it occurred to her that her intensity would probably frighten Kohaku. He was far too young. But he held on, clinging with the same grim determination he had displayed when trying to set up the futons, as if incapable of letting her go even in the worst of circumstances.

On a more conscious level, it occurred to her, as she buried her head into his hair and wept, that for all she considered him to be weak, his heart might be stronger than hers was, after all.


	3. The Sasanqua Tree

_**Chapter 3: The Sasanqua Tree**_

How he had made it, finally, to his favourite place, he didn't know. At this point, he didn't really care. He hadn't even bothered with his writing equipment. He simply sat there, underneath his favourite tree, writing kanji symbols. Over and over again. He'd written so many on top of each other that they didn't make any sense. Then he'd smooth it all out with fresh snow and begin the process all over again.

His fingers were turning blue. The newly placed mala beads were freezing even through the cloth that bound his hand. They were getting in the way of his writing.

It wasn't a hardship that bothered him anymore.

That woman had gathered up her child and left him there, semi-conscious and clinging to the door frame. He couldn't have blamed her for fleeing – he had nearly killed her child. He had nearly killed her.

And the knowledge weighed him to the ground even more than the fear of raising his exposed hand from the ground had.

He had been numbed into utter immobility – not even the cold could reach him.

Miraculously, the woman had returned. She hadn't fled at all. Recognising that the young novice's hand was something she couldn't possibly understand, instead of touching the boy, she'd trudged through the snow all the way to the temple, roused Mushin and brought him back, explaining what had happened _en route_. Unable to rouse him, Mushin had bound his hand, wrapped the beads around his limp, non-protesting hand and carried him back to the temple himself. Miroku didn't remember too much after that. He had a sensation of Mushin examining a bump on his head, leaving him to himself for a few hours, and eventually of himself, pushing his body into motion and fleeing into the icy wilderness to find the one thing that gave him comfort in this place.

He wasn't far from the temple, but had no hope of seeing it through the thickly-falling snowflakes. Closer to home, what tumbled around him were snowflakes of a different kind. The weight of the snow was shedding blossoms. With fragile beauty, the white camellia petals sprinkled the snow and shone against his dark kimono as he wrote.

By morning he, and they, would be gone from this tree. It never ceased to amaze him that anything could bloom in the depths of winter, but he knew the price was blossoms that could only survive for a few days at a time. Even so, the tree would keep pushing out flower after flower until even it eventually succumbed to the deepest chill of winter.

A fresh fall of blossoms was what made him realise he was no longer alone. He didn't bother raising his head, there was only one person it could be.

Mushin dropped down beside him with a heavy thud hardly lessened by the fact he was sinking into snow. 'Strange habits you're picking up here, sitting in the middle of a blizzard writing in the snow.'

Miroku clenched the branch he was writing with. 'Isn't it something Buddhist clergy do?' he asked dryly.

'Only the wise ones.'

Miroku didn't respond. He wasn't in a particularly charitable mood, and he was more than just a little tempted to observe that sitting outside in the middle of a blizzard wasn't a particular wise thing to do. It would only encourage the old man further – probably with lectures full of advice that Mushin himself never followed.

Mushin didn't say anything, so it's possible he got the message. Except he wasn't leaving either. They sat there in absolute silence. Normally, Miroku would have found the silence of a blizzard's fall to be enticing and thought-provoking. Now, he simply found it… lonely.

'Mushin-sama,' he said eventually. 'That woman. She wasn't scared or angry. I nearly killed her child. She was willing to sacrifice herself to save her daughter.'

Mushin was so silent that Miroku risked lifting his gaze to give him a quick look. It wouldn't have been the first time that he had tried to have a serious conversation with the monk only to find the man had fallen asleep on him.

'Not so many years ago,' Mushin replied, still not looking at him. 'A woman arrived here, at that very same hut. She'd walked over the mountain, in weather worse than this. The journey killed her.'

Miroku stared at him. 'Why would she do something so foolish?'

'There was nothing on the other side of the mountain. No shelter, no protection, no food. There were bandits and there was war, and there was a village wiped out by sickness. Perhaps, for herself, she would have taken her chances, but she didn't have only herself to be concerned with. She was a mother, and she was trying to reach this temple in time to save her son. That's all that mattered to her.'

There was a sick feeling in the pit of Miroku's stomach. He didn't need to ask the obvious question, so he didn't bother. Mushin gave him a sharp look from the corner of his eyes and, apparently satisfied that the boy was keeping up, continued on.

'I believe in a lot of things a monk's not supposed to, Miroku.' He threw the boy a warning look before Miroku could respond with sarcasm to that blatantly true statement, so Miroku again held his tongue. 'Women aren't so bad, boy, as I have no doubt you of all people will eventually learn.'

Miroku gritted his teeth. 'I'm not like my father,' he muttered. 'I'm going to be a monk. It's as simple as that.'

'If you say so,' Mushin agreed charitably. 'Even so, women aren't so bad. They're not all weak. In your life, you might face bandits, arrogant samurai, stubborn farmers, the illusions of your own inner fears, and youkai. But you'll never meet anything so strong as a woman who's got someone that depends on her for survival.' For the first time since arriving, he glanced directly at the boy. 'Miroku, I don't know what thoughts you've had about your mother, but she was a good woman. A strong woman. And she killed herself saving your life.' He looked away again, and returned his attention to the invisible sky, lost somewhere behind a blanket of clouds and falling snow. 'That woman wasn't so different from your mother. And neither one of them are so different from other women.'

Miroku eyed him, before looking down at his letters. He'd been writing 'woman' over and over again in the snow. Funny how he'd never noticed that before. He threw Mushin a quick sheepish glance, but the old monk averted his eyes. Miroku sighed and scuffed the symbol out. The old man had definitely noticed.

'Are you telling me to womanise carefully or marry the first strong woman I meet?' he asked dryly. It hadn't been his plan to do either, and he couldn't understand Mushin's obsession with the subject – unless it was because he himself was obsessed and therefore automatically assumed Miroku would be, too.

'You do as you please is all I'm saying,' the old monk retorted.

Miroku stared at him. 'Mushin-sama, is a novice really supposed to learn these things?' he demanded, but Mushin waved him off and forced his heavy frame to climb to his feet.

'Dammit, it's too cold for this,' he muttered, rubbing his ample backside. 'I'm freezing my behind off out here. You follow me in soon, boy. I'll have some warm sake waiting – for after you've polished the statue of Buddha.'

'Hmph,' the boy watched the monk stumbling departure. The dark rust-orange of Mushin's kesa looked almost red in this dull light, the wind stirring the hem of the kesa and sending it fluttering backwards, the last to disappear into the darkness and gloom that had swallowed the rest of the monk. Miroku blinked – for a moment, only a moment, the vanishing hem of that kesa had looked almost red, winding its way through the darkness like a half-seen ribbon.

Dismissing it quickly as a trick of the light, the boy returned back to the heavy thoughts awaiting him. It wasn't exactly unknown for monks to marry – he'd heard _those_ stories too, including the rather interesting notion that it helped a monk gain greater enlightenment on his path rather than removing his ability to attain it. As far as his situation was concerned, however, he found it ludicrous. Even if women could be as strong as Mushin claimed, what did that matter? It would be like asking a woman to voluntarily shoulder a curse he himself was struggling to cope with. Neither man nor woman was that strong, and surely it wouldn't be compassionate of him to expect it?

But still, he was old enough to appreciate his father's dilemma. If he failed, he'd need a son to carry on the quest for vengeance, otherwise how could any of them rest in peace? He stared down at his now definitely blue fingers. Maybe it was a question for another day, when he was old enough to see any pros and cons he might be missing now. At the moment, given everything that had happened, it seemed as though it was far too much to think about.

Nevertheless, it occurred to him later, as he was once more polishing a statue that was swiftly becoming the cleanest in the known Buddhist world, that his instincts may have been right about why he'd been polishing it so much recently. There was a definite connection between serious talks – or an attempt to have them – and being assigned this task. Precisely, Miroku realised, because it did indeed bring his situation to the forefront of his mind and allow him time to think about it. And, with his hand pressed down to the polished wood, it occurred to him that if he did do something drastic, like panic, his hand wasn't in a position to cause any major trouble either.

Maybe the old man had more going for him that it first seemed.

It was definitely becoming clear to him that, with a curse such as this, panic was simply not an option. It could get people hurt. It could get people killed. So, he had to stop panicking. Then he had to focus on the fact he had an enemy and that his enemy had a name. Then he had to train.

But, first of all, he had to face his fears.

* * *

Her father was missing again. She hadn't wanted to disturb anyone, so she had decided to look for him herself. Unfortunately, she was forced to rely on a neighbour to look after Kohaku while she searched.

That had been hours ago. Kohaku was probably worried about her. The snow was raging around her, a silent, persistent assault on her senses. It had never occurred to her before just how exhausting dealing with a snowstorm could actually be, how blind and deaf it make one feel. How lonely it was, as if she was the only one in the world that existed.

And how dangerous it was if she didn't pay attention to her footing.

She was fairly certain the ditch she'd fallen into was the one that had snared her father. The bushes were hard and sharp; she could feel the cold pressure on her clothing and digging into her skin. She crashed into the bottom tree, and cringed at the snow that was shaken down on her.

It took her a moment to realise it wasn't snow at all – white petals in a blizzard of their very own swirled through the air, before landing gently on the ground around her.

She stared up at the tree, at the fragile blossoms that threatened to tumble if she even breathed on them. It often surprised her, how a tree like this could even exist – it looked so weak, yet it blossomed at a time of year that most other trees couldn't even begin to flower in. What on earth was its secret?

Something shifted in the air behind her, a presence – of sorts. Turning, she squinted through the gloom, trying to identify whether she was alone, or whether it was simply her mood accentuating her imagination.

It was like a trail, defining the shape of the embankment she had fallen down, the blood that had spilled from the scratches on her skin stained the snow as if laid out like a thin red ribbon. It looked so very fragile, already beginning to fade away, disappearing under the soft blanket of new snow.

Her gaze followed it into the darkness and beyond. She wasn't certain what she was seeking, if she was looking for anything at all. There was something there, she realised. A flicker of movement amongst the shadows that fluttered almost like the sleeve of a dark robe, tinged in places with an almost purple hue…

'Is someone there?' she called, and was instantly greeted with an affirmative – the voice of the monk that had been with the family since her mother had passed away.

It took only moments for the monk to slide down the embankment to join her. He pushed back his hat and peered at her. 'Are you hurt?' he asked.

'No,' she said softly, looking down so that he didn't have to see her frown. She could have sworn that for a moment that the monk she had seen looked… well, _younger_. 'It's nothing,' she added quickly, looking up again. 'I'm fine.'

The monk nodded. 'You father's at home. He's safe,' he almost smiled. 'And worried about _you_.'

'He is?' Sango couldn't remember the last time she'd felt anything close to excitement flutter into life within her belly. Her father was paying attention to his surroundings again? Did that mean…? She quickly ducked her head. 'I'm sorry,' she muttered guiltily. 'I didn't mean to cause any trouble.'

'It's fine,' the monk assured her. 'Can you stand?'

She nodded and, clambering to her feet, scrambled up the snowy slope without aid, eager to get home and see what her father's state of mind actually was. Still, even as she reached the top of the ditch, she found herself pausing, turning back, trying to capture the attention of… _something_.

There was nothing there – even the trail of blood from her scratches had been completely obliterated now, by the snow and by their untidy exit from the ditch.

'It's a sasanqua tree,' the monk said softly from behind her.

'Hm?' Sango looked back at him.

'You appeared to be interested in the tree,' he clarified. 'I thought you might be wondering why a camellia would bloom so early in the winter – it's because it's a sasanqua tree. Look there.' She followed his gaze to the base of the tree, to the petals strewn about by her rude collision with its trunk. 'A camellia loses the entire head of the flower, but the sasanqua loses its blooms a petal at a time.'

'Oh.' So that was the difference, huh? It didn't really explain her actual question, however. 'Houshi-sama? Why does it bloom in winter? It looks so…' she couldn't bring herself to accuse it of being weak, not out loud, anyway.

The monk really did smile this time, as if he could tell what she was thinking. 'Poets regard it as a weak and lonely thing,' he explained. 'Its blossoms, they only last a few days, and there aren't any other blossoms to share the winter with. The slightest disturbance sends them scattering to the ground. It's as if they barely cling to life at all. That's what the poets see.'

'Oh.' Sango continued to stare silently at it. That's all she'd been thinking too. 'Is that what you see, Houshi-sama?'

The monk was silent for several moments before he responded. 'What the poets see is true,' he told her. 'The blossoms wither so easily and so quickly. Even so, the flowers keep coming – throughout the winter this tree will keep putting forth flowers, even though each one only lasts such a short time.'

'It seems like such a waste.' Sango tugged her kimono more tightly around her. It was too cold to be standing around in the snow – but the tree… in this gloomy light, it blended so well with the snow, and shone with the same silver light. It was almost ghostly. Almost as if it didn't belong in this world at all.

'Life, girl, should never be thought of as waste. That tree, it blooms when other trees can't, and it keeps putting forth flowers when other plants wither and die. And when the winter finally proves too much for even this tree, it simply waits for next year to come. You asked me what I see when I look at this tree? I see the how transient life really is – and I see that even when life is most fragile, it still has a will to survive. Even if its body appears to be broken to others, its spirit may still be fighting to live.'

She glanced up at his face and found him watching her from the corner of his eye. She blushed furiously and looked away quickly. He turned away. 'Let's go,' was all he said.

She paused just long enough to give the tree one last glance before turning and following him. She understood the lesson all too well – not to give up before all hope was lost, not to assume all hope was lost just because there was no hope to see.

Her father _was_ broken, but that didn't mean he would stay that way. As long as one blossom could survive the winter snow, did she have a right to think of him as broken at all? She would have to ask his forgiveness for giving up on him, she knew. And she would have to promise, if only to herself, that she should never give up on someone so easily again.

At least, that's what she told herself, and her mother, as she knelt before the family shrine later that same night. With the smoke of the incense sticks snaking around the shrine, and the statue winking as if freshly polished, she pressed her hands together and prayed. She prayed for the well-being of her mother, only with her in spirit. She prayed for the well-being of her father, only physically with her. She prayed for the well-being of her brother, that the strength she had seen in him recently would continue to grow, even though he seemed so weak. She prayed for herself. She prayed for the ability to give her family strength.

Finally, she even prayed for her future – that she could be a wife like her mother to a husband that she could respect. That he would be a man that didn't crumble in adversity – that he would be a man who possessed the strength to endure suffering.

And, inside a tiny temple that was lost within the shadows of a lonely mountain, a cursed boy knelt before a freshly polished altar and, with new hope in his heart, he prayed.

He dared to hope that his destiny would allow him to meet a woman that could bear the weight of sacrifice.

And he prayed for the strength to endure.

* * *

A cool breeze rippled through nearby trees and caused the grass surrounding her to shiver. The heavens shimmered in a silvery haze, a million snowflakes that tumbled through the sky, never once hitting the earth far below.

Head bowed, she stared at her lap, at the carefully wrapped object sitting there, before glancing across at his lap. At the carefully wrapped object he was holding in his hands.

She hadn't said anything about giving him a private gift. It was something she had decided on a whim. To thank him for having been there for her over the past year – both as a friend, and as something more. For the promise he had made her.

For surviving long enough to fulfil that promise.

She hadn't discussed it with him at all and yet here she was, holding a gift in her own hands. She glanced at his face, but he was staring at the present in his hands. Judging by his expression, he was thinking the same thing she was.

It _was_ a bit of a coincidence.

'So, this gift is related to the story you just told me?' he asked eventually.

Sango nodded. 'You'll understand.'

She seemed quite confident about that. 'I have no doubt of that,' he agreed. He glanced across at the gift in her hands. 'The same is also true in my case.'

She studied her present again. Also relevant to the story he had told her. Should she unwrap it now or later? Usually, she wouldn't have dreamed of opening it in front of the giver, but tonight…

'Hmph,' Miroku said. She didn't look at him. Judging by the amusement in his tone, she had a feeling he could read her thoughts well enough right now. She was nervous. It was _that_ night, after all. She didn't want to open her present in private because that would mean going home. Going to _their_ home.

They hadn't stepped foot in it yet. Not together, anyway. Somehow, this day had been so busy that she'd somehow managed to not quite make it home, too busy to pay attention to the knot of nervous excitement growing within her belly. She really had hoped he wouldn't notice, but now she suspected he had known all along.

He hadn't said anything about going home. Now, hours later, they were still outside, still under the stars, talking about everything – what they had survived together, their friends, their separate pasts.

Everything except their sleeping arrangements.

It had been hours – and he still hadn't mentioned a word about it.

It was something else to thank him for.

Boldly, he untwisted the ties of the parcel on his lap. Her eyes widened. He was actually going to open it now? She glanced down at her own. Well, if he was…

Carefully laying open the blanket, she stared at the object revealed within. The solid, rectangular block. A pillow. She didn't need to ask what it was made of. She glanced over at him, to find him staring at his own present.

A pillow.

He didn't need to ask what it was made of either.

**FIN.**


End file.
